Now And Never
by VioTanequil
Summary: A self-created insert between -102 and -100. A lot comes with age, experience being a minuscule portion of what time teaches a man. Kyouraku Shunsui, Captain of the Eighth Division, will come to regret a particularly bad decision. Oft bitten, never shy.


How many lieutenants has he lost?

Kyouraku Taicho, for that is his title, sits back and takes yet another sip from the dish, one hand leaning backwards coolly, head tilted up at the sky.

The stars are bright tonight, he muses, there is a slight breeze in the air, a certain musty whiff winding its way from somewhere not quite so close.

And another sip is taken as his sorrowful chocolate eyes slowly trace the constellations in the sky, slowly take in the cloudless sky, the small pinpricks of starlight breaking through the darkness of the endless space of sky.

A soft sigh escapes him, masked with an almost too hurried sip from the dish.

How many nights?

How many days?

How many times has he sat here, right here at this spot, looking right up at the same constellations which adorn the same sky?

How many times has he pushed another name to the stars and stuck it there, there, forever, for him to watch over, to remember?

_Too many.  
_  
Too many times has he lost a comrade, too many times has he lost a subordinate, too many times has he lost an acquaintance.

But it never seems to be enough.

It never seems to hit him, just this small knot of not-quite despair, but not-quite grief either.

It never seems to hurt enough for him to really, truly care.

It never seems to hurt enough.

Nothing ever seems to.

_He feels nothing.  
_  
Not apathy, just this certain hollowness from something that should have mattered more to him but that did not.

They die, and they…

They just die.

It does not hurt.

_It does not hurt, he tells himself.  
_  
He never loses friends, he notices.

Those he loses, never friends.

Never a friend, never a friend.

He has never lost a friend, and it does not look like he will lose one anytime soon.

After all, Kyouraku Shunsui has few friends.

He has comrades, he has comrades-in-arms, he has subordinates, he has loyal subordinates, he has acquaintances, he has reliable acquaintances.

But for his seemingly frivolous and ever-friendly nature, Kyouraku Shunsui has few friends.

He takes a sip, a wry smile coming to his face.

That is not to say the people around him mean nothing, merely that he feels nothing.

He muses that it is rather sad, really, to not feel anything other than a certain hollowness from not feeling anything.

_Who knows him?  
_  
Who can truly say they know the man, the enigma that is Kyouraku Shunsui?

No one, that's who.

No one truly knows him.

_Because he never lets them.  
_  
A wry chuckle escapes his lips before another sip from the dish, letting the last drop drip slowly onto his tongue before he swirls it around his mouth, slowly savoring the tastes that slowly spread around his mouth.

There really is something ironic about him, Kyouraku Shunsui, Captain of the Eighth Division, famous for caring for and after his subordinates.

He feels little, little emotions that truly tug at his heart.

Perhaps he is old, perhaps that is a reason, but a reason is merely an excuse.

There is a root to this problem, a dull ache he cannot cure, an ailment he cannot heal.

There is something, and that something is that he cannot bring himself to care for them.

He cannot.

He cannot.

_He cannot.  
_  
It hurts too much, and he has tried it, so he knows.

A wishful look to the empty sake jug and the dry sake dish.

It hurts too much to truly open up, to let them squirm their way into his heart, to dig a hole and to stay right there.

Which is probably why he has never let anyone do that.

_His lieutenants, one by one, come to grow to hate his methods, they dislike the lackadaisical Captain of the Eighth Division, the Kyouraku Taicho who does nothing but yet commands such immense respect.  
_  
_He knows that.  
_  
_And he knows that none of will ever grow to hate him, him as a person.  
_  
_But that's alright.  
_  
_A single inch of doubt, a single traitorous thought, even once in their lives._

That is all he needs, that is all he needs to know that they will…

That they will not grow too close to him, and he to them.  
  
It never works.

It never works.

Every single time, somehow, just somehow, they end up knowing him.

And he them, so for all that he has tried, nothing works.

His heart is too open, it was, it is, and it will always be.

But in defence, he has always trusted them, believed in them.

They could do it, or so he believed.

And to him, to him, to him who believes in them, who believes in their strength in battle and strength of heart, who still believes in their strength in battle and strength of heart, to him and him alone, it hurts.

_They betrayed him. They betrayed his trust._

He is hiding, he is shying away; he knows that, but he does not care.

It is not his fault.  
  
It hurts, but he does not hurt.

_He tells himself that he does not hurt.  
_  
He lets the dish fall to the side, lets it fall to the wooden floor with a gentle clunk, shrugging off that too heavy white robe and tugging his pink one closer to his body.

It is cold, tonight it is.

He does not know that this will be the last time he sees Yadoumaru Lisa, his lieutenant.

_He will never see her again.  
_  
He does not know that this will be the last time he sees Ise Nanao, a small child in his Division.

_He will never see that same small child again.  
_  
By the next morning, everything will be different.

Everything will have changed.

The moon seems to be laughing at him as he stands up, tugs his pink haori closer and walks away.

He will see Aizen Sousuke in two minutes.

And he will regret ever seeing him.


End file.
